‘Bully’ council threatens pensioner, 97, who feeds birds in her garden with a £2,500 fine or court action to force her out of her home if she doesn’t stop ‘anti-social behaviour’ of putting out seeds
by Aggressive_Plates
‘Bully’ council threatens pensioner, 97, who feeds birds in her garden with a £2,500 fine or court action to force her out of her home if she doesn’t stop ‘anti-social behaviour’ of putting out seeds
by Aggressive_Plates
24 comments
What a joke. It actually gets worse if you read the article.
They ordered her to remove a picture that said “I love birds” from her window.
And they sent people round to her home to give this letter. It is bullying tbh. Fuck that council.
If there’s seagulls stop feeding them.
How hard is it?
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The way this story is presented actually really pisses me off – you can be 97 or 77 or 17 and still be a dick that causes distress for your neighbours.
This isn’t an elderly woman who is feeding a few “robins and sparrows” in her garden, this is a woman and her son who are putting mountains of bird food in their on their property *and inside an outbuilding* to try and bring in hundreds of wild birds (seagulls and pigeons mainly), not finches or tits. The birds are nesting, roosting and breeding there – and, given that there is apparently a specific flock of formerly domesticated pigeons at the centre of this, it appears to be an attempt to re-domesticate them without appropriate housing or expertise in how to do so. Feeding birds in this manner brings in other vermin like mice and rats, which will spread to neighbouring properties. The smell and noise of seagulls alone is obscene. Imagine your neighbour has hundreds of seagulls living in their garage and honestly tell me you wouldn’t be caused immense distress.
It was stated a year ago that the council have received complaints from at least four separate neighbours over the course of at least seven years. This isn’t one nutty neighbour with some anti-sparrow agenda.
Not to mention, this guy’s story doesn’t even add up. The council says that, when they visited, there were hundreds of birds there. This guy says there’s 60 tops. He then says that he doesn’t believe they’ll go away if he stops feeding them, whilst also saying that they’re ruining his mother’s life by not allowing her to feed them because she likes watching them. If they won’t go away even if they stop feeding them, why can’t she watch them without feeding them?
It’s really not that difficult. If she loves watching robins and finches so much then she should’ve put out some simple bird feeders for garden birds. She’s only been banned from spreading feed because she refused to stop causing distress to her neighbours when she was asked the first (fifty thousand) times.
>A complaint from a neighbour that she was attracting pigeons and seagulls prompted the council to issue a ‘written warning’ last November and threaten a £100 fine if the ‘anti-social behaviour’ doesn’t cease.
Pidgeons shit everywhere. Sea gulls are just vile birds.
No-one should be feeding those birds.
>The flock of pigeons at the centre of the dispute are said to have been abandoned in the area by a resident who moved to Spain and released them to fend for themselves
This guy sitting in Spain totally oblivious to the chaos he has unleashed with this action.
Not unreasonable. I had a neighbour who kept throwing food waste in the street attracting seagulls and rats. She was an Indian immigrant and in her 60’s I would guess. I couldn’t talk to her as she spoke no English but she stopped after I spoke with her nephews (?)
Wait you can report neighbours for this? Everyday mine are throwing out bread or other gone off food for the birds.
Can’t stand people like this. The occasional bird feeder fine but let birds be birds and get food by themselves
I only had to read the headline and the name of the newspaper to guess the actual story would not be a local authority bullying sweet Miss Marple, but more along the lines of silly old sod thinks she can do what the fuck she likes.
my neighbour feeds two seagulls everyday and the seagulls are so annoying cos they come at the same time everyday begging
I love to hear the odd bird chirp in the morning as I wake up. But I once lived in a houseshare and a man 2 houses down was like this lady. He had seed all over his garden. Constant noise from pigeons and seagulls. It was an issue. Roofs were full of shit. This is obviously what she is doing. Nothing wrong with a bird feeder so you can see the odd robin or blue tit what shes doing is just being a menace as attracting that many birds you are not just using a feeder.
I’m glad I came to the comments before clicking on a daily mail article
“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.”
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
I absolutely loathed council tax prior to reading this…….
Its comforting to me to know that its not just the United States thats gone mad.
Its comforting to me to know that its not just the United States thats gone mad.
Yet when I lived in Tottenham and people would sacrifice sheep in their gardens the council and police would basically tell me to f off .
But some how feeding birds gets a reaction.
I’ve lived next to an old lady who did this and it’s not fun. Fuk tons of seagulls and bird shit to boot. Not to mention the noise.
The voracious and raucous gulls the feeding attracts, has a direct effect of reducing and preventing the ability of the surrounding garden bird population from nesting and foraging.
The voracious and raucous gulls the feeding attracts, has a direct effect of reducing and preventing the ability of the surrounding garden bird population from nesting and foraging.
I’ve been trying to see more tits at my house too.. but failed miserably. I think I need to work on my Tinder chat up lines. Got any tips?
Bloody can you imagine the Daily Mails spin if this was an immigrant ! Rage central!!